


Legacy

by GrayJay



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:52:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5047465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re a shit liar,” she tells him, and slides him a bar towel full of ice along with a second shot of rye. <em>Just like old times.</em> “Your knuckles are a mess.”</p><hr/><p>Josie and two generations of Murdocks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/4501.html?thread=8440725
> 
> Mostly TV canon, but with a lot of Jack-and-Josie backstory borrowed from the _Battlin' Jack Murdock_ comic miniseries.

The last time Josie sees Matthew Murdock is at the funeral, looking small and lost in a too-big suit, hands wrapped around his white cane. She wants to say something, but what the hell could she say? _I was your dad’s bit on the side, and I gambled my life savings on that fight, and he knew, and it’s probably my fault he’s dead; so sorry for that, kid._ She’s heard Jack’s face was so smashed in they wouldn’t let the kid touch it, had to ID him with dental records; and catches herself wondering how that even works if half your teeth are knocked out.

Matt’s there with a nun--not Maggie, as if Saint Maggie would ever get her feet dirty on the ground with the rest of the sinners of Hell’s Kitchen; and if she did, Josie’s not sure she could stop herself from saying a thing or three. Rip the cross off her sanctimonious goddamn neck for what she did to--

But that’s beside the point, because it’s not Maggie, just some generic penguin. She looks nice enough, but Josie keeps catching Matt edging away. She wonders if he’s okay, wherever they sent him off to. Wonders if he knows she offered to take him in; that they said no, because she wasn’t kin, and even if she were, she wouldn’t be a fit parent: unmarried woman who served cheap rye to two-strike ex-cons and lived in the walk-up above the bar. She's pretty sure she knew what the neighbors would’ve said about her if anyone had asked. What anyone would’ve said. Except maybe Jack.

_He left the cross on._ That had to mean something, right? Maggie’s cross, and she’d seen how he took it off to drink or to fight or send some cheap piece a cheap drink. But with Josie, he’d left it on, and that had to mean something. So she’d put all her money on him, even knowing he was supposed to take a fall. Like he was some kind of hero who could rise above; and she’d as good as killed the only good thing that had ever happened to her.

Matt taps his way to the grave, kneels to drop in a handful of dirt. He crosses himself like it’s a reflex, leaving a smudge on one lapel, then stands there silently at the edge of the hole until the nun puts a hand on his shoulder to steer him back.

Josie can’t leave it like this. She _won’t_. Waits after, until everyone else has muttered their well wishes and _I’m sorry_ s, then goes up to Matt. Ignores the nun, and gets down on one her knees so they’re face to face, (and that’s the end of this dress, which is fine, not like she has anywhere to wear a dress like that anyway).

“Your dad was a good man,” she tells Matt. “No matter what anyone else says. Your dad was a good man, and he loved you more than anything in the world. You remember that.”

There’s more she could say, but she won’t. Doesn’t know if the kid says anything back, because by then, she’s already stumbling away, half running in shoes that aren’t meant for soft ground.


	2. Chapter 2

“Holy shit,” says Donny, loud enough to catch Josie’s attention all the way over at the bar. He’s checking IDs on two uptown kids, one in sunglasses even though it’s well after dark--the kind of college assholes who get their kicks slumming in the Kitchen, the kind Josie hates.

She starts to head over, but Donny waves her off with a call of “They’re good.” He and the taller of the kids, the one in sunglasses, exchange a few quiet words; then Donny slaps the kid on the shoulder and waves him and his buddy in. It’s not until they’re past the door that Josie spots the white cane, and she follows it north to a face so familiar that her hand flies to her mouth before she can stop it.

Donny sidles over. “You know who that is?”

Josie nods. “Jack Murdock’s kid.”

“You okay?” Donny asks. Everyone knows Josie and Jack have capital-H History, but not a damn one of them knows just how deep it goes.

Josie shakes her head. “I’m fine. Christ, he’s all grown up.”

“Yeah,” says Donny. “Remember when his dad used to stumble in here and--”

“That’s enough,” she tells him, sharper than she needs to. “Take the bar for a minute.”

By the time she’s smoked through half a Camel and her hands have stopped shaking, the kids are already at a table, drinks in hand. Josie tells herself she’s not going to eavesdrop, but she does anyway.

“You okay?” Matt’s friend is asking.

Matt nods. “I’m good. It’s just a little weird. I remember what this place looks like, you know? I didn’t expect that.”

The friend laughs. “You spent the third grade hanging out in bars?”

Matt’s turned away from the bar, so she can’t see his face. “I spent a lot of it dragging my dad home from them.”

His friend’s face falls. “Shit. I’m sorry, man.” Matt shrugs him off.

“It’s fine. He was--he stopped after--you know. I think they were friends, though--Dad used to tell me I should come here if there was ever an emergency and he wasn’t around, and Josie’d take care of whatever it was. He didn’t trust a lot of people.”

“Is that why you wanted--”

Matt sighs. “I guess. It just seemed like--God. I don’t know.”

The friend throws an arm around Matt’s shoulders. “You know he’d be proud as hell, right?”

Later, when his friend’s in the bathroom, Matt wanders up, cane tapping ahead of him. He stands for a moment, running his fingers along the edge of the bar, until Josie realizes that, shit, of course, he can’t see her.

“Need something?” she asks.

“Two Jacks and coke, please,” he says.

She pours, and Matt bites his lip like he’s steeling himself for something, then says, “Sorry. I, um--are you Josie? I’m not--don’t think we’ve ever actually met, but I grew up pretty close to here. My dad--”

“Your dad was a good man,” Josie tells him. Twelve years, and she still can’t say it without her voice cracking. “And a good friend.”

Matt’s eyebrows jump. “That was _you_. At the funeral.”

“You remember that?” Josie’s not sure whether she should be touched or embarrassed. “Well, damn.”

Matt runs a finger along the edge of the bar. “Not really the kind of thing you forget. You left before I could, um, say thanks.”

“I guess,” she tells him. Didn’t want to intrude. Didn’t want to take a place that wasn’t hers, and not a day passes Josie doesn’t regret it, but she’s not going to say that out loud.

He nods. “You and he were, um. Close. Right?”

She nods, then realizes he wouldn’t have seen it. “I’m not sure he ever really had eyes for another woman after your mom, honey.” _He left the cross on--but there are some things you don’t tell a dead man’s son._ “But yeah, we were friends. He used to drink here, when you were little. And later, he’d still come by to visit now and then, chase off a few assholes for me.”

Matt laughs. “That sounds like him.”

They settle up at last call, and Josie undercharges them by half for their drinks. When the long-haired kid asks about it, she waves him off. Far as Josie figures, Jack paid off that tab long ago, with interest.


	3. Chapter 3

_It’s not fair._ Josie knows--has known for as long as she can remember--that _fair_ means jack for people like her, but it still stings when the sonofabitch in a suit gives his ultimatum, signed and stamped. Because even if she tells herself that _right_ is a privilege for folks that can afford it, she’d hoped that maybe hard work and smarts at least had some value across the board. Because under all the layers of hardness she’s worked so hard to build, Josie’s still the same wide-eyed kid who bet her life savings on Jack Murdock’s better nature.

And the thing is: She’s done everything right. Josie’s doesn’t look like much, and she’s got a fair idea what kind of business people do at the back tables, but the bar itself is scrupulously by-the-book.

So Josie knows what this is. Knows someone’s trying to snatch up cheap real estate after the aliens smashed down property values. She’s had half a dozen offers on the building, and she’s heard rumors about someone in tight with the city, but when the man from the health inspector’s office hands her the papers and demands that she sign, all she can think is, _it’s not fair._

Four weeks. She has four weeks.

Word gets around fast. One of Rigoletto’s goons comes around the next day--out of respect, he tells her, but she knows what it really is--with a counteroffer; and now Josie’s suspicious of everyone, doesn’t know who’s behind it, who the hell she can trust. She treks down to city hall, but she doesn’t know the first thing about what to do in the middle of all that glass and chrome, and she leaves embarrassed and furious and even more desperate than before.

When Matt and Foggy wander in--with two weeks left on the clock--Josie is so preoccupied she doesn’t even notice them until Foggy sidles up to the bar. They’re not regulars, exactly, but they make it in every month or two. Of the two of them, she’s learned that Foggy is the talker: the one who let slip that they’re pre-law at Columbia while Matt blushed into his drink; who tips her off if they’re there because they aced an exam or because Matt’s latest flame burned out, which happen with roughly equal regularity. 

Everyone at Josie’s _knows_ Matt, but they all _like_ Foggy: Matt’s not great at small talk and chafes against his local celebrity like it’s a hair shirt; but Foggy is unflappably friendly and outgoing. He knows everyone’s names, and their kids’ names. When Clint Peterson burst into tears at the bar because he’d flushed his whole life so far down the toilet he couldn’t fish it out with a plumber’s snake, Foggy bought Clint a drink and said to meet him tomorrow; and the next day, he showed up with six solid inches of legal aid forms and job leads and transitional housing brochures, and spent four hours helping Clint fill the whole mess out. When Matt got his acceptance letter to Columbia Law--a full week before Foggy--it was Foggy who stood on a chair to announce to the whole bar that his best friend was going to be the best damn lawyer in New York and even wheedled Josie into joining them for a round to celebrate.

And Josie--well, right now, Josie’s holding on to composure by the skin of her teeth, and maybe sampling a little harder than is strictly good for business, so when Foggy opens his mouth to order and instead asks, “Are you okay?” she actually tells him the truth.

“Oh, man,” says Foggy. “Josie. You gotta tell us about this kind of thing sooner.”

She shakes her head. “So you can worry longer? Look at me like I’m dying? I’ve lived in the Kitchen all my life, kid. I should’ve known better than expect a good thing to last.”

“Oh, _hell_ , no,” Foggy tells her. “I am not letting it end like that. We’re gonna fix this, okay?”

Before she can protest, he’s called Matt over. They spend the next hour going over the letter line by line, Foggy scrawling notes on a stack of bar napkins while Matt rattles off statutes and precedents.

Two days later, Foggy and Matt are waiting outside when she opens the bar. “Okay,” Matt starts, “This can’t officially be legal advice, because we’re not actually lawyers yet.” They spend the next six hours telling her about loopholes, grandfather clauses, and city statutes. Half of it flies straight over Josie’s head; but two days shy of the deadline, she’s got a brand new license--signed, sealed, and notarized--to show Rigoletto’s punk when he comes back around.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s not that Matt’s at the bar that sends Josie for a loop--now that they’re out of school, he and Foggy are in at least weekly. It’s that he’s there alone. Foggy comes by himself now and then, or with a girl; but the last time Josie saw Matt slip through the door without his friend, he was eight years old.

Instead of heading to their usual corner table, Matt taps his way to the end of the bar, sinks down in a stool, and without looking up, says, “Whiskey, neat.”

Josie slides him the glass, and when he raises his head to drink, she finally gets a look at his face: sloppy butterfly bandage along one eyebrow, a bruise spreading down his cheek from under the sunglasses, split lip that must burn like hell when the whiskey hits it. For one uncanny, reeling moment, she’d swear it was Jack back at the bar: the battered face, the way he shoots the whiskey without a word; glass clenched in one raw-knuckled hand.

“Jesus, Matt,” she says.

He shrugs. “It’s nothing. Someone left a box on the stairs, and I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You’re a shit liar,” she tells him, and slides him a bar towel full of ice along with a second shot of rye. _Just like old times._ “Your knuckles are a mess.”

Matt grimaces as he runs his fingertips over the ice. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

_Jesus, Mary, and Joseph_ , Josie thinks. _He’s Jack all over again._ “If you’re in something over your head--”

“ _I can handle myself_.” It’s almost a growl, and he must realize how he sounds, because the next time he talks, his voice is softer, conciliatory. “It’s nothing. Seriously.”

Josie puts a hand on his shoulder. She’s expecting him to jump, but he just sits there. “You know who you sound like?”

Matt sighs. “Yeah.”

“Don’t go down that road, kid,” she tells him. “You know what’s waiting at the end.”

“I’m not my dad,” he tells her, shrugging out from under her hand. “And this isn’t--that. I know what I’m doing, Josie. Trust me.”

“He used to say that, too,” Josie says, and heads to the other end of the room, as far away as she can get. A few minutes later, Matt drops a ten on the bar and taps his way out the door.

It happens a few more times, and not long after that, Josie starts hearing stories about the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but she doesn’t put two and two together until some kid from uptown starts pawing at a local girl who’s so trashed she can hardly stand. Matt’s at the bar alone--it’s one of _those_ nights--and she’s expecting him to keep his head down like he usually does, but instead, he picks up his cane, stalks over to the kid, and tells him in a low, dangerous voice, “Leave her alone.”

Josie doesn’t hear what the kid starts to say back, because Matt’s on him faster than her eyes can track. In the end, it takes Josie and Danny both to pry Matt off. By then, the kid’s face is covered in blood from his busted nose and split eyebrow, but Matt’s not even breathing hard.

“Fucking psycho,” the kid hisses, as his buddies drag him to his feet.

“Drunk means _no_ , shithead,” Matt growls back. “Stay the fuck out of the Kitchen, or I will fucking _know_.” There’s something about the way he says it that makes Josie think he really believes it. That maybe he’s telling the truth. The kid’s friends must hear it, too, because they don’t say another word, just grip the asshole's arms a little harder and steer him out the door.

Matt shrugs Danny off and nods to the girl. “Can you make sure she gets home okay?” Danny nods, mute, and Matt just stands there until Josie says, “We’ll take care of her.”

Back at the bar, she slides Matt another drink. “On the house.”

“Thanks,” he says, but he doesn’t drink, just taps out a beat on the rim with his fingers.

“Look,” she says. “Matt. What I said before, about your dad, I didn’t mean--but I worry about you, kiddo.”

She’s expecting him to offer the same set of excuses, but he just nods wearily and keeps playing with the glass.

“He used to do shit like that, too,” she tells him. “Play hero.”

Matt takes a sip and grimaces. “Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to hit something.”

She starts noticing things, after that: the way the news reports about the Devil line up with the nights Matt shows up with new bruises. The fraction of a second between when he reflexively reaches to catch the cup that Foggy fumbles, and when he lets it slip from his fingers a moment later. She hears stories: a child-trafficking ring busted up, runaways returned safely home. The thugs who cluster in the back of the bar start showing up with bruises, or not at all.

The day she knows for sure is the day a girl who can’t be more than sixteen, in too-tall heels and too much make-up, stumbles in crying, telling Josie that two guys jumped her in the alley behind, but a man in a mask fought them off and told her to run to the bar for help, that Josie would take care of it.

Josie takes care of it.


	5. Chapter 5

The bombs go off on a Thursday, in the middle of the evening rush. The bar’s far enough from the explosions that all they lose are a few bottles; and Josie switches the TV to the news and turns it up, as customers scramble for their phones.

The phone behind the bar keeps ringing, too--worried wives; Donny, who’s got the night off, calling to let her know that half the Kitchen’s blocked off but he’s pretty sure he can make it in if she needs him. And then a woman--a voice she’s pretty sure she knows but doesn’t quite recognize, asking if Matt Murdock is there.

“Haven’t seen him tonight,” Josie tells the girl. She’s been so busy she hasn’t even thought about Matt, and now she can’t stop glancing at the TV, wondering if he’s out there in the thick of it, doing whatever it is he does.

“Shit,” she says. “It’s, um, it’s Karen.” Now that she’s got a name, Josie can place the voice--the pretty blonde, Foggy and Matt’s friend. “I’m at, we’re at the hospital, and Foggy’s hurt, and Mrs. C., and Matt’s not answering his phone, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

Josie’s too numb to think about the second part. “Foggy's hurt? What happened? Is he okay?”

“Yeah,” Karen says. “He’s--they’re okay. But Matt’s--fuck. I don’t know what to do.” Josie can hear her starting to cry for real now. _Does she know?_ Josie wonders. “I know he always says he can take care of himself, but Josie, he’s blind, and he--he’s not answering his phone.” _That’d be a no_ , Josie thinks.

She glances up at the screen just in time to see blurry footage of a man in black. The ticker, bright yellow against the flames, flashes new text: MASKED DEVIL STRIKES. Josie’s heart skips a beat.

“Are you there?” Karen asks, from the other end.

“Yeah,” Josie tells her. “I’m--look, honey, Matt’s tougher than he looks, and he knows this neighborhood. I’d bet he’s safe at home, but even if he’s not, I’m sure he’ll be fine.” HOSTAGE CRISIS, the ticker flashes, and Josie copies down Karen’s number with numb fingers and wonders if she’s just sentenced a second Murdock boy to death.

“I knew that masked creep was bad news,” she hears Alec Spencer declare from the corner of the bar. 

“Shut the fuck up, Spencer,” Josie snaps, sliding his drink over just a little too hard, so it splashes when it hits the empty by his hand. “You haven’t figured out by now that the news in this town is bought and sold, you’re dumber than Clint fucking Peterson.”

Clint, two seats down, raises his glass. “Bout damn time someone was.” 

At the other end of the bar, she can hear some girl murmuring a prayer to St. Anthony-- _for the lost_ , Josie remembers, although she’ll be damned if she knows where she picked that up.

Josie’s not much for saints or prayers, but every time she ducks under the bar for the rest of the night, she whispers one anyway, just in case.

By three in the morning, the Devil’s gotten away, and Matthew Murdock’s name has yet to show up on any reports of the missing or the dead. Josie keeps checking for another two days, until Matt finally drags himself in the door and settles down at the bar.

She slides him a shot of rye without saying a word, and he nods thanks, and that’s about where they leave it.


	6. Chapter 6

Last call is 2 AM, and the last stragglers trail out sometime before 3.

At 3:30, Josie’s counting out the till when she hears someone fumbling with the back door. It’s locked--she’s _sure_ it’s locked, it’s _always_ locked--but she grabs the shotgun from behind the bar and waits all the same.

A moment later, the door bursts open, and Josie raises the gun so fast that Daredevil almosts stumbles straight into it. He looks like shit--limping, leaving smears of blood where he’s leaning against the wall--and once she’s over her initial shock, she pulls him the rest of the way into the hall and locks the door behind him. She’s seen the red costume on the news a time or two, but it’s a hell of a thing up close.

“Jesus, Matt,” she says.

There’s a moment when she’s sure he’s going to lie, but instead he slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, and pushes back the cowl. “How did you--”

Josie levels her best glare at the kid. “You think I’m stupid?”

“No,” he says. “That’s not--I just--”

“Crazy goddamn Murdock boys,” she grumbles, trying to get a good look at the state of him in the dim light of the hall. His face is smeared with red: Josie’s gonna have to break out the bleach once he leaves. “How much of that is yours?”

Matt shrugs.

“You’re not about to die on me, are you?” she asks. “I figure the ER’s out, but I can call someone.” Josie knows a few doctors who don’t ask questions; and she’s pretty sure at least one of them owes her a favor. Either way, she’s not letting another Murdock die on her watch.

Matt shakes his head, and presses a hand to his temple, wincing. “I’m okay. Someone had a--pipe, maybe? Knocked me for a loop. I’ll be fine; I just needed somewhere safe to sit down and get my bearings.”

“Arm’s bleeding,” she points out.

“Yeah,” says Matt, like it’s nothing. _Like he’s Jack._ He runs the hand that’s not pressed against his head along the edge of the other arm--not looking, and she’s going to have to ask him about that someday, how blind he actually is or isn’t--until his fingers find their way to a long tear in the suit and probe gingerly underneath. “If you’ve got some tape, it’s nothing that can’t wait ‘til I get home.”

“Yeah,” says Josie. “I’ll get the kit and some ice from the back. Anyone following you?” _Idiot_ , she scolds herself, not thinking to ask that sooner. She should know better.

“No,” he says, like he’s sure. What the hell does Josie know? Maybe he is.

She comes back with the first aid kit, and silently passes Matt a bag of ice and a bottle of bourbon from the back room. He takes a swig, then offers it back.

“Want to talk about it?” she asks, once he’s got the ice on his head and she’s taping up his arm.

Matt shrugs.

“You actually blind?” she asks him.

“That’s a hell of a question,” he says. 

Josie shrugs. “That’s a hell of an outfit.” It's red, two shades, with actual goddamn _horns_ , not half as scary as it looks on the news--or, she imagines, in a dark alley.

Matt bursts out laughing. “So I’m told.” Josie waits. “Yes. I’m actually blind.”

“Right,” says Josie. “Want to tell me how you run around rooftops beating up criminals?”

Matt pulls the ice away from his head. The bleeding has slowed, and it gums up his fingers when he reaches up to check. “You should get that stitched up,” Josie tells him.

“I’ll take care of it later,” Matt tells her. “And most sighted people don’t run around rooftops either. I’m--there are other ways of seeing. I told you. I know what I’m doing.”

Josie looks at him leaned against the wall, and the streaks of blood drying all the way to the door. “You’re an idiot.”

He smiles ruefully. “Probably.”

“Your friend know about all this?” She remembers their whispered conversation, the way Foggy followed Matt out of the bar the night Fisk escaped and the Devil recaptured him.

“Foggy?” Matt grimaces. “Yeah. He’s with you on the idiot thing.”

Another point for Foggy, then. Josie wipes of her hands, takes another pull from the bottle. “That shit I’ve seen you do on TV,” she says. “Jack didn’t teach you that.”

“No.” She doesn’t say anything, waits. “I had a teacher. After. Dad didn’t--” He sighs and closes his eyes. “I know he wouldn’t approve, but I’d like to think he’d understand.”

Josie thinks about Jack, with his quiet voice and crooked grin. Jack, drinking too much because he couldn’t face himself in the mirror sober after a day breaking kneecaps for a two-bit mobster. Jack, coming in to settle up his tab a week after Matt’s accident, and telling her he was done, that he had to step up and be a man for his son. Jack, Maggie’s cross around his neck, eyes closed and face as calm as she’d ever seen it. And now Matt, slumped against her wall in a devil suit, with his father’s sad eyes and busted knuckles. The resemblance isn’t the face, she thinks, not really: it’s in the way Matt walks; the set of his jaw; the quiet, even voice with something red-hot and dangerous lurking just beneath.

She passes back the bottle. “Yeah,” she tells him. “I think he’d understand.”


End file.
